# Who was the first non-W.A.S.P. US president?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 26, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853 "2012-09-26T03:24:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/1 "2012-09-26T03:24:33Z")
The only non-WASP prez’ I know are the recent ones (Obama, Clinton, O’ Regan, Kennedy, there may be others.) As far as I know, the original English settlers had a big segment of Roman Catholics, who settled initially in Jamestown. There were also several who were of Scottish or Celtic/Irish stock. Then, there were Spanish and French predecessors farther to the west. It’s not impossible to have a president in the 1700s to 1800 who wasn’t entirely white, anglo-saxon, and protestant.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/2 "2012-09-26T03:33:15Z")
[Martin Van Buren](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Van_Buren) was not WASP, since his ancestry was Dutch. (He’s also the only President who did not speak English as a first language.)
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### Author:  [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/3 "2012-09-26T03:39:30Z")
The Dutch are very much anglo-saxon and Van Buren, I believe, was a protestant.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/4 "2012-09-26T03:47:36Z")
> [@the\_diego](#):
>
> The Dutch are very much anglo-saxon and Van Buren, I believe, was a protestant.
The Dutch are closely related, but the Anglo-Saxons were the Germanic peoples who settled in England south of the Danelaw roughly between 500 and 1000 AD. The people who remained on the continent in northern Germany and neighbouring areas aren’t called “Anglo-Saxons”.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/5 "2012-09-26T03:58:48Z")
> [@Giles](#):
>
> [Martin Van Buren](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Van_Buren) was not WASP, since his ancestry was Dutch. (He’s also the only President who did not speak English as a first language.)
What do you think the Anglo-Saxons came from? China?
OK, technically it was the Jutes who were originally from Denmark, not the Angles, but in real terms the Dutch and Germans have always been part of the upper class elite. If not, then you have to throw the two Roosevelts out of the WASP clan and they are the most patrician 20th century presidents of all.
Reagan was brought up Protestant in his mother’s religion. That’s all that matters. Many other Presidents had Irish Protestant ancestry and they get counted. I’m not sure why Clinton doesn’t count. He’s White and Protestant.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/6 "2012-09-26T03:59:22Z")
The first and only non-white President is Obama (who is biracial). The first and only non-Protestant President was Kennedy. You didn’t ask about Vice Presidents, but Biden is the only non-Protestant VP and there haven’t been any non-white VP’s.
The Anglo-Saxon part is tougher because it’s a lot vaguer about who qualifies. No President was literally Anglo-Saxon because of the constitutional requirement of being a native-born American along with the fact that Saxony hasn’t been a country since 1871. And the Anglos haven’t been a country since sometime around the 10th century.
Going by the broader definition of Anglo-Saxon as somebody whose ancestry is from Northwestern Europe, you’re pretty much looking at Obama as the first non-Anglo-Saxon. Van Buren and the Roosevelts were Dutch-American, Hoover and Eisenhower were German-American, Kennedy and Reagan were Irish-American. Other than that you’re looking at English-American and Scottish-American.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/7 "2012-09-26T04:07:52Z")
Good grief. If you’re not of English, Scottish, or Anglo-Irish descent, you’re not Anglo-Saxon.
Martin van Buren does not count as a WASP. By the time of the Roosevelts, the Dutch had probably intermarried and assimilated into northeastern WASP culture, though.
Good call on Hoover. I forgot his family were Germans named _Huber._
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/8 "2012-09-26T04:25:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> If not, then you have to throw the two Roosevelts out of the WASP clan and they are the most patrician 20th century presidents of all.
Teddy Roosevelt, at least, considered himself to be Dutch and objected to being called Anglo-Saxon. From [here:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestant)
> [@](#):
>
> American humorist Finley Peter Dunne popularized the ridicule of “Anglo Saxon” circa 1890-1910, even calling President Theodore Roosevelt one. Roosevelt insisted he was Dutch and invited Dunne to the White House for conversation.
James Monroe was technically speaking not Anglo Saxon, being of mainly Scottish, Welsh, and French Huguenot ancestry.
Of course, the response to the OP depends on what exactly one means by WASP. “WASP” really refers to the elite old monied families of the US. In this sense, the Roosevelts would be WASPs. However, in this sense Lincoln, Truman, Clinton, and most other white Protestant presidents of English ancestry would not be WASPs because they were not from the elite.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/9 "2012-09-26T05:09:45Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> If you’re not of English, Scottish, or Anglo-Irish descent, you’re not Anglo-Saxon.
So somebody from Saxony wouldn’t be Anglo-Saxon?
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/10 "2012-09-26T06:54:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> So somebody from Saxony wouldn’t be Anglo-Saxon?
Correct. It would be like referring to someone born in Africa as African-American. Anglo-Saxon specifically refers to the descendants of Germanic tribes that settled in England between 500AD and 1000AD, not Germanic tribes in general.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/11 "2012-09-26T07:02:17Z")
> [@SanVito](#):
>
> Correct. It would be like referring to someone born in Africa as African-American. Anglo-Saxon specifically refers to the descendants of Germanic tribes that settled in England between 500AD and 1000AD, not Germanic tribes in general.
I’m not seeing it. We’re not talking about people who were actually born in Anglo-Saxononia or where ever; that place hasn’t existed for centuries. So what’s the difference between being an American of Anglo-Saxon descent and being an American of Saxon descent?
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/12 "2012-09-26T07:51:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I’m not seeing it. We’re not talking about people who were actually born in Anglo-Saxononia or where ever; that place hasn’t existed for centuries. So what’s the difference between being an American of Anglo-Saxon descent and being an American of Saxon descent?
Linguistic heritage, for one thing. “Anglo-Saxon” usually means at the very least that you had English-speaking ancestors.
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### Author:  [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/13 "2012-09-26T08:46:44Z")
Well my ignorance was well-fought. I thought a bit like Little Nemo, believing that anglo-saxons were basically northern Europeans, discounting Celts, Scots, Latin/Gaul and Irish. So I thought a WASP in the US was any white nordish protestant, whether an original English settler, or later waves that included the Eisenhowers, the Jensens, and the Van Pelts. We will have to exclude later Irish and Latin migrants.
But I think the Germanic Englishman belonging to the first wave is a better qualifier. This will encompass the linguistic heritage and the notion of being of the elite. Therefore Reagan and Clinton still don’t make the WASP list. And Van Buren was the first non-WASP C-in-C.
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### Author:  [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/14 "2012-09-26T10:04:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I’m not seeing it. We’re not talking about people who were actually born in Anglo-Saxononia or where ever; that place hasn’t existed for centuries.
Borders may have shifted over the centuries, but it’s what we would now call ‘England’.
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> So what’s the difference between being an American of Anglo-Saxon descent and being an American of Saxon descent?
An American of Anglo-Saxon descent has ancestry from the British Isles, specifically England, and his ancestors spoke English, rather than German, as a first language.
From the [OED](http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Anglo-Saxon?q=anglo-saxon):
> [@](#):
>
> noun
> 1a Germanic inhabitant of England between the 5th century and the Norman Conquest.
> • a person of English descent.
> • chiefly _North American_ any white, English-speaking person.
Interestingly, the OED says the North American definition applies to any white, english speaking person. I think the French also use this definition - ‘English speaking’ being the important part.
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### Author:  [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/15 "2012-09-26T11:39:39Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Teddy Roosevelt, at least, considered himself to be Dutch and objected to being called Anglo-Saxon.
He also objected to being called ‘Teddy’. From [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt).
> [@](#):
>
> he found it vulgar and called it “an outrageous impertinence.”
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### Author:  [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/16 "2012-09-26T12:01:17Z")
> [@the\_diego](#):
>
> The only non-WASP prez’ I know are the recent ones (Obama, Clinton, O’ Regan, Kennedy, there may be others
>
> […]
O’ Regan doesn’t sound familiar. When was he in office?
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/17 "2012-09-26T12:16:24Z")
Then of course there was Jefferson. Very much of an Anglo-Saxon, but a deist and I doubt that would make him a Protestant.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/18 "2012-09-26T13:28:36Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> What do you think the Anglo-Saxons came from? China?
>
> OK, technically it was the Jutes who were originally from Denmark, not the Angles, but in real terms the Dutch and Germans have always been part of the upper class elite.
The Dutch are not Danish, and the Danish are not Dutch.
Obama does, in fact, have quite a bit of Anglo-Saxon ancestry and cultural heritage, and he is a Protestant.
[QUOTE=Foolsguinea]
If you’re not of English, Scottish, or Anglo-Irish descent, you’re not Anglo-Saxon.
[/QUOTE]
I think the Scots might argue with you here, especially the (relatively few but real) Gaelic-speaking Catholics in the Hebrides. WASP is traditionally used for any Protestant whose ancestry is from Europe, which includes Scandinavians, Celts, the Germanic peoples, and Huguenot French. The “Anglo-Saxon” refers to the linguistic and cultural heritage once in America, not one’s family tree. So in that sense the answer to the OP is “Kennedy”.
It’s sometimes used in a broader sense )kind of stupidly) to mean “White”. In that sense the answer is “Obama.”
It’s never used to mean ONLY people who are physically descended from the Angles and Saxons who came to England and no one else.
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### Author:  [@BoomerSailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoomerSailor)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/19 "2012-09-26T13:43:13Z")
Martin Van Buren was not Anglo-Saxon.
He was the first.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-non-w-a-s-p-us-president/635853/20 "2012-09-26T13:44:25Z")
Anglo-Saxon means English (and possibly lowland Scots and Anglo-Irish). The Dutch aren’t Anglo-Saxon and neither are the Saxons.
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